


Heal My Fire

by SpellCasterLight



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Modified Naruto Timeline, Themes of Loneliness, Themes of Threat, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29398755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellCasterLight/pseuds/SpellCasterLight
Summary: Imagine it, a fire bender in the Nara earth clan. [Shikamaru x Hinata] Naruto AU Week - Day 6 Prompt: Avatar: The Last Airbender AU
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Nara Shikamaru
Kudos: 9
Collections: Naruto AU Week 2021





	Heal My Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way shape or form. This story is purely for entertainment not profit.
> 
> Author's Notes: Naruto AU Week day 6 prompt! Omw this was supposed to be short!
> 
> Pairing Warning: It also goes without saying but if [Shikamaru x Hinata] isn't your thing turn back now.
> 
> Warnings: Alternative Universe. Modified Naruto Timeline. Themes of Loneliness. Themes of Threat.
> 
> Naruto AU Week - Day 6 Prompt: Avatar: The Last Airbender AU

Shikamaru Nara was unique for many reasons, his lazy attitude towards most things, his fantastic deductive skills, his amazing insight into people's minds, his abnormally high IQ.

All of these not even touching on the fact that he was the first ever fire bender born in Konohagakure in over three hundred years. There hadn't been a fire bender born in Konohagakure since their annihilation in the failed Uchiha uprising.

Imagine it, a fire bender in the Nara _earth_ clan.

Nara clan members immediately called for Shikamaru's mother to be thrown out of the clan for even birthing such an abomination.

Shikaku, Shikamaru's father, wouldn't hear of such stupidity, using every power he held as head of the clan to stop their wrath against her.

The clan head could only force his clan to be polite to Yoshino, he could not, unfortunately, force its members to like her or include her in things. Most days Shikamaru's mother didn't even leave the house because of the stares and whispers.

* * *

Rumours and gossip spread through the village's population quicker than a disease ever could; and Shikaku ended up taking the brunt of it unwilling to protect his family.

Shikamaru could still remember the day most of the other clan heads and heirs came banging on their door demanding answers; him and his mother had hidden upstairs while the livid mob shot angry hate filled question after angry hate filled question at his father.

"Have you looked into Yoshino's entire family tree?! She must be a Uchiha spawn! We must annihilate her entire family!"

"What about the boy? How will he be dealt with?!"

"I hope you haven't thought about sending him to The Academy! He'll burn the place to the ground and everyone in it!"

"Just kill them both now and be done with it!"

With every yell his mother cried harder and held him tighter.

The youngest Nara found that, even when he wanted to cry, he couldn't; did that make him as awful as they said he was?

* * *

It only got worse when he joined The Academy against the mob's wishes.

"Name?" The academy instructor asked when his father brought him to an open sign up desk at aged eight.

"Shikamaru Nara."

"Ahh another Nara!" The male instructor grinned. "The earth instructor this year is-"

His father cut him off quickly.

"He's a fire bender."

The whole courtyard went _silent_.

Shikamaru even at eight years old had to give the guy props that he still managed to remain professional, which was more than could be said for everyone else around them. They weren't even trying to hide their points and whispers.

"We don't have anyone to teach him-" the man clearly didn't want to say fire bending. " _That_."

"I've done my research water bending and fire bending have a lot of crossover in both movements and techniques," Shikamaru looked up at his father at that. "Put him in the water bending class."

"You still need to learn fire bending in its purest form," his father informed him as soon as they were safe in their own home and not being watched and ease dropped on. "I'll get you some books on techniques to practice."

How his feather managed to get the rather large assortment of fire bending history and craft books he didn't know. Half of him wanted throw the books in the Nara forest lake but his instinctual want to know what he was and what could do won out. He devoured the knowledge like a drowning man at sea devoured air once he broke the surface.

* * *

The fire bender became a master at finding places to hide, places to sleep in peace, places to avoid the other classmates, places to avoid the teachers glares at him; places to, for a second, pretend he wasn't seen as some sort of evil thing for simply being alive.

Today he had chosen a spot under a tree round the back of the grounds, but the silence was broken with someone panting, the panting got louder as they got closer.

Shikamaru sat up, ready to bolt.

"O-oh I'm s-sorry! I didn't me-mean-" the white eyed, purple haired girl cut herself to stare at the floor and poke her forefingers together. Her two water canisters attached to her belt, a standard for any water bender, swung lightly at her waist from her running.

It was a girl he recognised from his class, Hinata Hyuga, a water bender that seemed to only want to learn about the healing aspects of water bending.

Girl couldn't hurt a fly, not that she seemed to have the want to hurt anyone or anything anyway.

The Nara didn't relax though, remaining on the balls of his feet, ready to run at any second.

"Why are you running?" He asked.

She looked sad then, her fingers coming together again.

"The o-other ki-kids they. I'm s-sorry I'll le-leave-"

"It's fine," the Nara said, genuinely interested why they would pick on the Hyuga heiress, of all people. "Why were they picking on you?"

"I w-want to be a he-healer. I don't w-want to fight; I don't-I don't li-like fighting."

It was just like he thought and no, that wouldn't make you popular, not with the classmates they had, not with who her father way, not with what clan she came from.

"Can-can I st-stay here?"

"Do you plan on attacking me?" He asked back and the upset look on her face told him all he needed to know.

"What a drag," he closed his eyes again, lying back down. "You can stay."

His eyes might have been closed but his nerves didn't relax, ready to move at a moment's notice if this turned out to be some elaborate trick to catch him off guard.

It was only when she willingly sought him out in the same spot to heal him after a bad beat down a few days later did he decide she was trustworthy.

It felt strange, trusting someone who wasn't his parents, a bitter part of him reminded him it probably wouldn't last and to not get used to it.

* * *

"Am I a Uchiha?" Shikamaru broke down and asked his father one night when the children and adults at The Academy had been particular blood thirsty, his eyes glazing over, never straying from the shogi board between him and Shikaku. "I've seen pictures and I-I don't _look_ like a Uchiha but then why? Why can I bend fire instead of earth? I don't understand," he sobbed as violent tears started falling from his eyes. "Why was I _born_ this way?"

"Listen to me," his father started in a dark and serious tone. "I don't know why you can fire bend, but you can, and we have to simply live with that fact. You were given this power for a _reason_ Shikamaru. All power originally comes from good. Good thoughts, good hopes, good dreams; _good_."

The clan head placed a firm hand on his shoulder and shook him then to make his son look up at him.

"People have passed down stories of the evil fire benders have done, of the evils the Uchiha did, but no one talks about the good they did too. Maybe you were given this power to show all of Konohagakure that fire bending is not the enemy, that you are not the enemy for simply being you, that all power is good if used the right way."

He couldn't believe his father said that, suddenly put that weight on his shoulders, he felt like he was already being crushed under its responsibility.

* * *

"We make a good team," Shikamaru stated in a broken sort of way.

Hinata looked up from healing the large cut on his arm. "Huh? W-What do you me-mean?"

The fire bender snorted darkly.

"People injure me then you heal me," the Nara looked out to the vast grassy hill they were hiding from the world from in. "And then we get to do it all over again tomorrow, at least its good practice for you."

The water bender waved her hand down to a lower part of his arm, bringing the small collection of water almost hovering under her palm with her. He liked watching her heal, the blue tinted light the water seemed to take on, he just wished it wasn't on him every time.

"Why don't yo-you fight ba-back?" Hinata asked him when she had healed his last injury and he retracted his arm to roll out his wrist.

He looked at her like she was crazy.

"Don't be a drag Hinata you know why."

From the way she rested her right forefinger against her bottom lip and blinked at him in confusion, no, she didn't know.

Shikamaru rested his tired head in his palm before looking across the field again, a sadness creeping up his spine.

"Because I'll win."

* * *

"Kiba put those down; you do not know how to do such a thing. You will simply; injure; yourself."

"Shi-Shino's right Ki-Kiba."

Shikamaru cracked an eye open to see Shino Aburame and Hinata adamantly trying to persuade Kiba Inuzuka to put whatever was in his hands down.

The air bender just smirked back with a dismissive flick of his wrist, taking a few more steps away from them.

"It's easy! My sister does it all the time! I'll just give the lit match a little extra air to make it bigger than take all the air back to extinguish it! Just wait! You'll love it!"

He lit the match then and with the other hand flicked his fingers out towards at the fire and it exploded in size making the Inuzuka drop the match and, in his surprise, seemed to add more air to the fire instead of taking it away like his normal plan and the blaze only grew more.

"Kiba!"

"Ki-Kiba!"

The fire bender jumped up, dragging the fire towards him instead of the other boy with a full body spin, arms outstretched. When all the fire was around him the Nara forced the flames into the smallest form so he could squash it out in his two hands with a violent clap.

It was only when Shikamaru returned to his normal way of standing, shoulders slouched, hands in his pockets, head tilted to the side did the air bender speak.

"Tha-thanks man."

The Nara merely nodded, lying back down on the grass, and closing his eyes to continue his nap.

* * *

A next day as he was doing his usual of trying to get out of the building as fast, he could after class he was stopped by Kiba moving to stand in front of him, blocking his path.

"Hey man."

When the fire bender didn't reply the air bender continued.

"You-" Kiba looked over his shoulder and when the Nara looked the way he was he saw Hinata and Shino standing a little way away, they nodded their heads. "-do you wanna come hang with us?"

Shikamaru took a step back, he'd fallen for traps like that in his earlier days, but he was smarter now, more cautious.

"Hinata made a whole bunch of food and I don't think the three of us will be able to finish it all, what do you say? Wanna join us?"

When the Nara took another step back the healer came running out from behind the air bender to grab his hand before he could run off.

"Ple-Please Shika?"

The fire bender looked at her with indecision. He didn't think Hinata would try to hurt him but the other two he really knew nothing about-

"We; mean you no harm," Shino suddenly spoke making them both look up. "We assure you; of that."

"Yea dude! I owe you my head from yesterday!" Kiba grinned. "Come on! Have a picnic with us!"

The Nara barely spoke during the entire picnic, which lasted most of the late afternoon and early evening. He couldn't speak through the emotional lump in his throat.

"I think I made some friends today," Shikamaru told his father when he got home. Shikaku listened with undivided attention as his son told him the whole story.

His father didn't even look up from the shogi board, didn't look as shocked or amazed as he had been. "It was only a matter of time. You're a good kid."

* * *

For reasons unknown to him Kiba liked hanging out on top of the hospital, 'good air' he said, it must have been an air bender thing.

A few months after graduation, and he _had_ graduated, because there were three different types of benders the guidelines simply stated you needed to complete several challenges with their bending abilities.

From the looks on the instructors faces they would be writing some new guidelines in the near future.

"What; is that noise?" Shino suddenly asked making all four of them go silent.

The Nara sat up, yes, he could hear the noise too, a sort of metal grinding noise, almost like-

Shikamaru's eyes went wide as he started sprinting towards its source at the other end of the hospital roof. "It's the gas tank! It's gonna-!"

It exploded the Nara throwing up his arms and bending the fire it caused to fold back into itself, to halt it simply engulfing the entire hospital building and all its occupants.

"Get water benders!" He shouted and all three of his friends dashed off in different directions to get help.

It took everything in him to stop the fire blast from incinerating the hospital; water benders quickly came from behind him to help put out the fire and the moment it was gone, the moment he could stop concentrating he felt blood run down his nose and he passed out.

When he woke up his father, Shizune and several other important members of the village were standing around his hospital bed.

"Every person in this hospital owes you their lives," Tsunade, the current Hokage, stated plainly before smiling at him. "I'll make sure everyone knows that."

* * *

From that day on his standing in the village skyrocketed. He was made Chunnin for saving the hospital, his graduate classmates started actively wanting to spend time with him, he led missions which earned further respect from his fellow shinobi and bonded with clan heads and heirs to strength political ties.

Yoshino was thrilled when the entire house was filled with countless happy friends for a party to wish him a happy birthday for his sixteenth.

He was almost beginning to feel like maybe his father was right, maybe his fire bending was a gift and not a curse; not even just for himself but for his family as well, Yoshino Nara was starting to make her own friends and left the house willingly now. She smiled most days when before he caught her crying more often than not.

* * *

The Land of Wind's Kazekage and his children came to town, a few weeks after his sixteenth birthday, with him, Hinata, Kiba and Shino placed in charge of showing the three siblings around.

"So, what kind of bender are you guys?" The oldest boy Kankuro asked and Shikamaru could feel Hinata shoot him a nervous look.

It was true a large portion of the Konohagakure village respected him, but he had yet to interact with any other village's shinobi, the Uchiha did a lot of damage to villages and clans alike when they were at their peak. Especially Sunagakure. They burned Sunagakure until there was nothing left to salvage at all.

Shikamaru pointed to his comrades one by one.

"Water. Earth. Air."

"And you?"

"Not important."

Temari's face took on a calm but deadly expression, her voice going down a tone. "That's not what I heard."

He turned to the blonde sand ninja then. "And what did you hear?"

"Don't play stupid _fire bender_."

It had been a while since he had had that thrown at him in that derogatory sneer of a voice but the wounds, they opened in his mind were quick to bleed. He took a few seconds to collect himself.

"Don't be a drag, I don't-"

"Don't be a coward," she threw back, leaning back on her right foot, her arms curling up in an air bender starting position. "Fight me."

When she sent a gale force wind at him, knocking over Hinata behind him, he didn't really have a choice then.

* * *

He beat her without injuring her. The best outcome he could have asked for.

"You not even gonna finish it?" The blonde panted making Shikamaru raise an eyebrow.

"Finish what? There's nothing to finish, I won."

"I thought you fire benders burned everything to the ground and _then_ called it a win?"

"Temari," the youngest sand sibling growled in a low commanding tone, but he was ignored.

"Isn't that your thing?" Temari carried on, teeth gritted. "Kill everyone and everything? Only when there's smoking piles of ash everywhere do you pat yourself on the back on your good job."

"Shikamaru; is not like that," Shino spoke up then to defend him. "He is-"

"Good?" Temari finished the Aburame's sentence with an open violent scoff. "Fire benders aren't _good_. They burned our entire village into nothing! Killed thousands and laughed about it! "

"That was hundreds of years ago!" Kiba jumped in then. "Shikamaru wasn't even born then! None of us where!"

"Temari shut up," Kankuro yelled then. "You're just being a sore loser. He had every chance to hurt you and he didn't give it up."

The female sand nin turned to yell at her brother then. "Fire benders are all the same! You're all just too dumb to realise."

Temari got in Shikamaru's face then, practically spitting on him.

"They should have killed you when they had the chance," she got even closer, to whisper. "You and your mother."

The Nara's hands were fisted in her collar then, eyes hard as his hands sparked to life, small amounts of smoke appearing with the heat he created, singeing her clothes.

"You gonna kill me fire bender?" The sand ninja outright snarled at him. "Go on do it! Do it like your worthless ancestors!"

The Nara heard Hinata mutter his name is a small scared voice behind him and the thought of the healer seeing an ugly bloodthirsty version of himself gave him the clarity he needed.

"No," the fire benders grip loosened and Temari fell to the ground. "You're not even worth it."

A gentle grip enveloped his hand then, when he turned, he found Hinata looking at him with pride and compassion.

"Let's g-go Shika."

They slipped away under the cover of Kiba screaming at Temari, the blonde screaming right back and Shino calmly, but sternly, talking to the other two siblings who looked uncomfortable of their sister's conduct.

* * *

Hinata dragged him off, away from the sand siblings, away from everyone, to one of the peaceful grassy hills he took naps on, that him and his friend used to hide from schoolyard bullies in.

"Oh, that po-poor flower."

He turned his head just in time to see Hinata kneel down, to hover over a fading flower, and with a few flicks of her wrist and an elegant downwards motion of her hand water moved from the very air and into the flower, healing it, giving it a new turn at life.

The water bender was a healer, through and through, why did she like him? What could she _possibly_ see in him?

It suddenly felt like all the progress he had made for himself over the last few years was stripped from him in one horrible soul-destroying moment, the fire bender hatred Temari spewed at him ringing in his ears.

The Nara was dragged back kicking and screaming to the dark biting feelings of believing he brought nothing but confusion and anger and hatred and distrust since the moment he had accidentally set fire to the kitchen table when he was four with merely a thought and a wave of his arm.

It was funny, if he had made a boulder fly through the kitchen window instead his clan and village itself would have cheered. His life would have been a breeze. This self-loathing would have never taken root, wouldn't have grown into something that felt like it was strangling him.

He was ready to _hurt_ Temari for what she said about his mother, if it wasn't for Hinata speaking at that moment, being there at all; he didn't know what he would have done. Would he have proven her, right? Proven everyone's first opinion of him right by happily watching her burn?

Shikamaru honestly didn't know; and that _terrified_ him.

"What do you see in me?"

Hinata looked up then and, her shocked look told him that, yes, he was in fact crying like he suspected he was.

"Shi-Shika what?"

"How can you stand me? I bring nothing but misery. You heard Temari, and I-I was ready to _hurt_ her I'm-" he felt his knees give out as he collapsed onto the grass. "I'm nothing but a _monster_."

"Wha-what?! N-no!"

She was over to him in a second and wrapping him up in a crushing hug.

"Don't s-say that! You care about pe-people so much! You protect ev-everyone! Being a fire ben-bender doesn't make you ba-bad Shika. It's what we d-do with our gifts that ma-make us who we a-are."

"You're b-better than m-me. You're b-better than all of us. You're s-such good per-person Shika, I admire y-you so mu-much and I-"

The healer cupped his cheeks then to look him in the eye and make sure he was truly absorbing her words.

"-I c-care about yo-you."

He pulled her into a crushing hug combined with a bruising, desperate kiss and she responded after a surprise filled gasp escaped her, wrapping him up in more love than he had ever known.

Years later, when they got married, they had three children. A water bender, a fire bender and a non bender; and he loved them all equally.


End file.
